When the idea of
Managed Travel 2.0 burst onto the scene it was a fresh approach to a long
standing problem: how can we stop maverick travellers booking outside of
process and prevent leakage from T&E programmes? Scott Gillespie led the
charge promoting the travel innovations he'd like to see and in early
2013 KDS launched Flex T&E as a point of sale
solution to this problem. At that time I said it
would probably be an 80:20 solution with 20 per cent of corporates
going down that route, however, the results have actually been more 95:5 and I
believe this is because many people have taken their eyes off the real problem.

Initially we had thought that the emergence of ‘millennials’ onto the scene had
driven the urgency to find a new type of solution, as these digital natives are
far less forgiving of bad technology. However, the last year has shown us that
this is not a generational thing - it's a ‘bad user experience’ thing!

People of all ages leave the corporate process when they can't find what they
want. This may be because of poor content (the right content poorly displayed
or the right content at the wrong price) or if they have to spend an
unreasonable amount of time/effort using the tool (performance and usability).

Put another way -
the whole leakage/maverick/millennial problem stems from a failure of tools and
processes. When tools, policy and process are at odds with traveller
experience, the result will inevitably be leakage and maverick behaviour. Tools and policy driven too aggressively by cost savings sometimes contradicted
themselves (we've all flown a cheap flight but ended up spending more on ground
transport or seen a cheaper flight than the one listed in our corporate tool)
which further 'justifies' the maverick's stance.

Some providers jumped on this
as an opportunity to 'not' address their core issue, which was a terrible user
experience and lousy content. However, not even millions in marketing budgets can
convince the industry that ‘open booking’ is anything more than a rebranding
exercise (failure = innovation). Sceptics might even say it's an opportunistic
way of bypassing both the TMC and GDS. At KDS we recognise the
importance of the ecosystem and believe we all have a role to play both
now and in the future.

Allowing people to effectively
bypass process and tools using only an 'open booking' solution simply pushes
the problem back to the user. They have to spend more time on many different
sites for the search and book process. They then have to spend even longer
manually entering this into expense systems - two steps backwards!

The simple answer to the problem is a great user experience with complete
content. Sound familiar? It should do - because that's what we've attempted to solve with KDS Neo. We have found that Neo is delivering the right results by addressing the core
issue and solving the root cause of the problem - fast and simple door-to-door
bookings with the best choice of content. Users of all ages are responding to
this in the way we hoped – by booking online with the right tool and embedded
policy and process. Indeed both hotel attachment and user adoption are up in
the customers who have deployed Neo so far.

There is still a place for
'open booking', specifically where there is no TMC in place or if the customer
is not using truly innovative solutions like KDS Neo - but it remains on the
peripheries rather than on centre stage.

This post was written by Oliver
Quayle, KDS Senior VP Products and Partners. For further information on KDS
please visit www.kds.com.

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

There’s no doubt the industry has seen a significant
increase in awareness – and understanding – of the serviced apartment
model in recent years, but what more could operators be doing to make
themselves appealing to business travellers and to capture its share of the
accommodation budget?

Marlin Apartments

According to this year’s Global Serviced Apartments Industry
Report from The Apartment Service, demand for serviced apartments is
outstripping supply in many territories. This is due, in part, to the greater
adoption of serviced apartments in travel policies, but also to more apartment
operators taking short-stay (less than one week) business away from hotels.

But the report also claims that the serviced apartment
sector still has a very long way to go and that its shortfalls are, in fact,
self-inflicted. How?

Varying terminology between territories (serviced apartment in the UK,
corporate housing in the US, etc)

Varying consistency of the product

Lack of synergy between the product and the GDS distribution channels
used by TMCs

Lack of recognised ratings system

Dolphin Square

So what’s the answer? According to TAS, the key to driving
an even greater understanding of serviced apartments is through greater
standardisation and the introduction and adoption of an industry-wide code of
conduct for operators.

Let’s hope it’s not too long before these steps are taken
and the serviced apartment sector can take another well-deserved leap forward
in being accepted by corporate travellers and managers.

This post was written by David Chapple, who is event
director of the Business Travel Show, which takes place 4-5 February 2013.
Buyers can visit the ASAP (Association of Serviced Apartment Providers)
Pavilion at the show, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in
2014.

Friday, 11 October 2013

I distinctly remember the first time I visited the
Business Travel Show – it opened up a whole world I never knew about as a
starter in the industry and I still have friends today that I met on that first
visit at the exhibition’s old home in Angel, Islington.

But it is the first time
I decided to invest in exhibiting which I recall the most. As Sales &
Marketing Director at Statesman Travel it was a difficult job to persuade the
MD to invest in a space, stand, time and resources to get the most out of the show. But it was worth every penny as we showcased our services for the first time
publicly to the market.

I recall one client who was considering our
services visited our booth and, to this day, I think the sight of us at the event
added weight to our bid as a credible company. We won the account, of
course. But it was when all the hard work was over that I experienced my most
memorable BT Show experience.

We had neglected to book any transportation
for our booth post event, so I bribed a team from another airline booth to
throw our stuff in the back and give us a lift across London. We sat
buckled up in the back of a truck in a set of brand new transatlantic business
class seats for the five mile trip across the capital. Mission complete, at
a competitive price too, and surely I must hold the record for the shortest
business class trip ever?

Monday, 7 October 2013

It’s been a while since we blogged
about NDC – five months in fact – and, in that time, this most controversial of
business travel issues has continued to dominate headlines. It also came up
again and again at the GBTA Europe Conference last week. And it was there that
I had an idea.

There has been a lot of negative comment about NDC, but I
think it’s safe to say the industry agrees that the price transparency NDC
provides is a positive thing for everyone: the airlines, the buyer and the
traveller. By displaying everything from the basic fare, to the extras such as
baggage fees, extra legroom costs and taxes, buyers and consumers can compare
like for like for the first time when booking flights and airlines can compete
fairly.

And this made me wonder. Does NDC have the potential to help
travel managers drive and increase compliance while also keeping their
travellers happy? Can it be both a carrot and a stick?

For example, if all airlines displayed a de-ancillaried
price on NDC, TMCs could then negotiate any ancillary costs directly, and the
choice of those ancillaries – up to the value of, say, five per cent of the air
fare – could be left up to the traveller. So the traveller could decide if they
prefer extra leg room, priority boarding or lounge access, for example, and
this element of choice would help to make them feel like they were valued and
had some element of control, while, in fact, they were being gently coerced
into complying with policy. And a compliant traveller is every travel manager’s
Holy Grail, right?.

By David Chapple

David Chapple is event director of the Business Travel Show,
which takes place 4-5 February 2014 in London. Find out more at www.businesstravelshow.com.
Comment on this blog below, or contact David on Twitter @btshowlondon